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Friend of Add-ons: Juraj Mäsiar

11 responses

Our newest Friend of Add-ons is Juraj Mäsiar! Juraj is the developer of several extensions for Firefox, including Scroll Anywhere, which is part of our Recommended Extensions program. He is also a frequent contributor on our community forums, where he offers friendly advice and input for extension developers looking for help.

Juraj first started building extensions for Firefox in 2016 during a quiet weekend trip to his hometown. The transition to the WebExtensions API was less than a year away, and developers were starting to discuss their migration plans. After discovering many of his favorite extensions weren’t going to port to the new API, Juraj decided to try the migration process himself to give a few extensions a second life.  “I was surprised to see it’s just normal JavaScript, HTML and CSS — things I already knew,” he says. “I put some code together and just a few moments later I had a working prototype of my ScrollAnywhere add-on. It was amazing!”

Juraj immersed himself in exploring the WebExtensions API and developing extensions for Firefox. It wasn’t always a smooth process, and he’s eager to share some tips and tricks to make the development experience easier and more efficient. “Split your code to ES6 modules. Share common code between your add-ons — you can use `git submodule` for that. Automate whatever can be automated. If you don’t know how, spend the time learning how to automate it instead of doing it manually,” he advises. Developers can also save energy by not reinventing the wheel. “If you need a build script, use webpack. Don’t build your own DOM handling library. If you need complex UI, use existing libraries like Vue.js.”

Juraj recommends staying active, saying. “Doing enough sport every day will keep your mind fresh and ready for new challenges.” He stays active by playing VR games and rollerblading.

Currently, Juraj is experimenting with the CryptoAPI and testing it with a new extension that will encrypt user notes and synchronize them with Firefox Sync. The goal is to create a secure extension that can be used to store sensitive material, like a server configuration or a home wifi password.

On behalf of the Add-ons Team, thank you for all of your wonderful contributions to our community, Juraj!

If you are interested in getting involved with the add-ons community, please take a look at our current contribution opportunities.

11 comments on “Friend of Add-ons: Juraj Mäsiar”

  1. Quentin Dai wrote on

    Well deserved! Juraj brought back Speed Dial and I’m still grateful for this. Nice guy and I wish him the best for the future.

  2. Peter wrote on

    Hlavička 😉

  3. Ondrej Mäsiar wrote on

    My brother likes to help. He is also very happy about this article.

  4. Lud wrote on

    Congrats Juraj!
    I’m using groupspeedial add-on everyday and it is super helpful to keep my work organized.
    I have also seen the effort put toward continuously improving it, so thanks again for that.

  5. Ruxi wrote on

    Juraj is one of the most interesting people I met. I was impressed by his capacity for deep comprehension of things and by his genuineness to help and bring things (and people!) to the next level.
    I remember talking with him for hours and not noticing when the time passed by.
    I learned the basics of programming from him. He is such a nice and funny teacher! Even when I was struggling with something that seemed complicated and intricate, he taught me how to see the problem in an approachable way.
    Everyone needs a Juraj is their life.

    1. Juraj Mäsiar wrote on

      Thank you Ruxi!
      You are amazing and I think there should be more of you in the world! 🙂

  6. Alex wrote on

    Congrats Juraj!
    I know this guy is super nice, and very enthusiastic about his addons

  7. Juraj Mäsiar wrote on

    Thank you all, and thank you Caitlin for having me 🙂

    Regarding my experiments with Crypto API, I’ve just finished my new “Private Notes” addon:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/private_notes/

    Love you all! Have a great day 🙂

  8. Will Bamberg wrote on

    Congratulations, Juraj! Very well deserved.

  9. Frank Jacks wrote on

    I begin with adding another “word of thanks” for picking up (recreating ) “Speed Dial” (which I had been using for years, literally … and most happily) and having this replacement has been nice … until yesterday when the up-grade in Firefox screwed things up … likely I somehow did it but Lord only knows how and why (and this is not my here here anyway!) which forced me to build my ten pages of references (which I use instead of “book marks”) because I lost all of my previous data (???). Anyway, the point here is that this forced me to “go under the hood” for the first time and while my “learning curve” in figuring things out was productive (but time-consuming) so that i now understand a bit better about the “care and feeding” of this extension … at least I now know how to restore (instead of rebuild!) which I report with a “heavy sigh” (mostly of relief)! Still, I do appreciate having this up and running again and decided it was past due for me to “say thanks” for the creating and publishing of this useful little program! So “Thanks a bunch”! A big bunch!

  10. EP wrote on

    Congrats to Juraj indeed.

    about the planned deprecation of FTP in Firefox:
    https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/04/13/what-to-expect-for-the-upcoming-deprecation-of-ftp-in-firefox/

    the current pandemic situation has not gotten any better (it actually got worse in recent weeks), it looks like plans to deprecate FTP should be delayed indefinitely until further notice